Tales of Midbar: Secret Priest
Chapter 19: Judging Sixteen - part 1

The scheduled meeting between Sixteen and Benai Nibeyim leaders had been moved to the refractory because the shrine was being used for a prayer meeting.

Just after the sapphires went dark, I entered with Dwendra and Egrindreth, with a feeling of trepidation. This was probably going to be the most important event of my life so far and I didn't have my father to advise me.

Inside the building, we found that the tables had been cleared from the centre and several chairs set up in a circle. Several people were already present; Ice, Yoldasia, Mum and three men I didn't recognise, one of them in a wheelchair with both legs and an arm in plaster. Yoldasia gave me a very hostile look but Ice smiled and nodded at us.

"So you made it?" said the man in the wheelchair. "Sit down, it will be friendlier that way. As I expect you know, a lot of good people died this morning, including several of our leadership and the Grand Merchant and Grand Shepherd. Therefore, this meeting probably won't be final as we'll have to elect some new leaders before making any major decisions."

We started walking towards the empty chairs but Mum jumped up from her chair ran up and hugged me. "Clindar, darling are you alright! Has the nasty Sixteen girl done anything to you?"

"I'm alright Mum!" I said.

"Nice to see you too, Anden," said Egrindreth sarcastically.

"You!" said Mum looking at Dwendra. "You're Sixteen! Attan was right! Latchmir said that I should be nice to you and your mask would crack and now it has." Then she turned back to me and said, "You're case is going to be heard at Tarngrath the day after tomorrow and you really should be there and we'll really have to leave now!"

"I'm sick of people making decisions about me without me having a say in the matter!" I said. "I didn't schedule either meeting and I really need to be at both."

"I don't think you're needed here!" She looked at the man in the wheelchair. "Do we really need him?"

"Andan!" said Ice. "We can teleport Clindar. If you want to make the trial, you'll have to leave now."

"You can what!" exclaimed Mum.

"Teleport," said Ice. "It's a secret that we can do that. We had to reveal it as a result of the battle but only magi are supposed to know."

"You can teleport him all the way to Targrath?" asked Mum.

"I'd rather not go into details but we can certainly get him there in less than two days."

"That's how you got out the safe house isn't it?" asked Mum.

"And probably why our anavim keep disappearing," said the man who wasn't in the wheelchair, looking accusingly at Ice.

"No comment," said Ice.

"Your father's on his way to Targrath," said Mum. "I'll stay here."

We took the empty seats, with Egrindreth and Dwendra on either side of me.

"This meeting is being called under the terms of the Treaty of Bedrin Pass," said Ice. "One of the terms of this is that, in the event of a conflict between unaffiliated anavim and Benai Nibeyim, Haprihagfen should be called on to resolve it."

"Does that mean that I can complain to you about Benai Nibeyim having girls raped who would probably have had sex with me?" I asked.

"What?" asked Mum. She clearly hadn't known about that.

"You may have a point," said Ice, "but that's not the issue we're here for."

"I art actually a Benai Nibeyim member," said Dwendra, "but thou seemeth unsure whether to accepteth me as such and I art unsure thou still hath a record of me."

"That's something we're here to establish," said the man in the wheelchair, "I am Quandat, acting Grand Shephard, I suppose, and this," he indicated another man, "is Vardnin, the Grand Fig Grower." He pointed to the last man and said, "This is Buxnir, the acting chief priest of Rendamar Temple. I think you're already familiar with the others."

"I should say," said Buxnir, "that I'm acting chief priest because the last real chief priest disappeared and was probably murdered by Nuharas. However the government refuse to rule him officially dead and the police won't even recognise his disappearance as suspicious, as if he was a juvenile delinquent!"

"I don't knoweth Yoldasia's position," said Dwendra. "I wouldst surmiseth she art the Grand Vinegrower."

"Your daughter's going frantic now her new god, goddess, whatever has been killed," said Mum.

"Has she got a gas ball?" asked Yoldasia.

"No," said Mum.

"We'd better make sure she gets one or she'll go completely insane," said Yoldasia.

"I thought the gas balls were driving her mad," I said.

Yoldasia gave me a look that, if looks could kill, would probably have sent my soul to an especially dreadful afterlife as well.

"Now," said the man in the wheelchair, "Dwendra isn't it? You claim to be Sixteen?"

"Yes."

"You heard about the avatars and decided to get in on the act by pretending to be Sixteen?" asked Yoldasia.

"No, I art telling the truth, dost thou not hath telepathy?"

"You do understand that we replace this hard to believe," said the man in the wheelchair, "especially considering the coincidental timing with the avatars and the new Vineyard magis. We were supposed to send Sixteen a message. Do you know anything about that?"

"Yes, posted through a grating into the sealed crypt in Rendamar Temple but thou never senteth one unless it arrived two minutes ago."

"Teleportation?" asked Vardnin.

"You understand the problem," said Quandat. "Not only is it difficult to access but we replace it hard to believe that you'd specify that location in the current circumstances."

"I didst expecteth thou to breedeth an anav priest prior to the Cataclysm."

"So you're not infallible?" asked Yoldasia.

"Only Yoho art infallible."

"We've kept the details about Sixteen secret, as much as possible," said Quandat. "Do you know them?"

"I knoweth what I didst telleth the Grand Vinegrower a thousand years ago, I art unsure how accurately that hath been recorded. I art Bedri Dwenda, fourth child and third daughter of Tarasas and Mardna, who weret hipsickim likhatzim born unto nibeyim and katcheyim. I wast born in Gindrac, on the fourth day of the tenth month 13982 after Landing. I wast chosen as a priest's wife but my parents didst converteth unto Nuhara and gaveth me unto Nuhar Zorg to be his eleventh wife."

"Knew she was insane!" said Mum.

"He tried to rapeth me on our wedding night, but I killed him, with some help, and wast transported roughly a thousand years into the future. There I discovered that Yohoism wert a dead religion and all the Yohoist priests hadst been slaineth along with their families. I returned to my own time but discovered that the priest I wast meant to marryeth wast a nibey so I told the Grand Vinegrower to posteth a message into the sealed crypt to tell me where I couldst replaceeth an anav priest when they didst breedeth one, so I couldst taketh him to the future and save Yohoism."

"What is your great plan to save Yohoism?" asked Yoldasia.

"I wast going to transporteth the anav priest to after the Cataclysm to continueth the priesthood."

"That's your plan!" screamed Yoldasia. "General Faldrath saved the priesthood without resorting to time travel!"

"I thought he killed them!" I said.

"No," said Quandat. "That's what he led everybody to believe. He built the pyre in such a way that it would produce a lot of smoke from the outer edges away from the temple, the bits the public could see. Then he removed the priestly families from the top and dumped the ash into the sea so nobody would notice the lack of human bones. He also helped get the families false identities and found homes for them all over the Great Basin, and probably a few outside."

"I didst not knoweth that," said Dwendra, "but that doth explaineth why the number of founders of that town in Under Bet art the same as the number of priests who wert supposedly burnt."